What's Unsaid
by Nightshade's sydneylover150
Summary: Sometimes House wondered why he just didn't tell Wilson how he felt.


TITLE: What's Unsaid  
AUTHOR:sydneylover150  
PAIRING: House/Wilson which can either be taken as a strong friendship or pre-slash.  
RATING: PG-13 for House dropping the f-bomb in the story.  
WARNINGS: underlying bitterness, a bit of despair. House's thoughts in 3rd person point of view. Post-No Reason, thoughts of how season 3 will go.  
SUMMARY: Sometimes House wondered why he just did not tell Wilson how he actually felt.  
DISCLAIMER: I'm in college and I'm working two jobs to pay for it. I can only dream about owning one bit of these guys.  
NOTES: This is in response to a lot bitterness and annoyance due to people at work and to curiosity to what House thinks about all the stories where Wilson is going on about how Vicodin has changed him and how House loves misery.

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House stared down at Wilson sleeping on his couch and shook his head. Wilson had come over to celebrate House's four week without pain. He had drank so much alcohol that House had only had to ask Wilson once to stay. Now his friend was passed out on the couch.

Earlier in the evening Wilson had tried to convince House to talk to him about his feelings since he was now "drug-free;" Like that was ever going to happen. But sometimes House wondered why he just did not tell Wilson how he felt now and previously. It would be a lot easier than having to endure the pained and often exasperated looks directed towards him. Unfortunately, House being House was too stubborn to share his feelings. In fact, Wilson would probably have a coronary if House ever did share his feelings. But at the same time he was blocking any chances of Wilson getting to know him better than before. Not that House did not want Wilson to have a greater understanding of himself (although Wilson saw more of House's inner mind and feeling than House's mother); it was the fear that even if Wilson knew more about him, James still would not understand what it was like for Greg.

That is why House stopped short at explaining that the Vicodin only made him neutral and why it was so important to be neutral for him (although the flash of anger that Wilson had ignited had not helped matters). There was no way that Wilson could understand the pain that sitting still caused House everyday. And that pain did not even include the psychology pain that House's leg caused him; not that he admits that he does have any psychology pain. The pain was still sharp. The vicodin only dulled it and as his body developed a tolerance towards the medication, the period of relief dwindled from four hours to only two then only to hours at a time. It required him to take twice as many pills that he had taken before just to reach a place where the pain was not distracting him from his work.

Wilson only saw the addiction. He had not fooled House when a year and a half ago Cuddy betted House that he could not go a week without his pills. From the outsider's eye it appeared that the bet had been all Cuddy but at the bet's root, it was all Wilson. House knew that it was Wilson wanted him to stop taking the pills, so he did. He went cold turkey. House had admitted that he was an addict and he had seen the flash of relief and hope which appears in his friend's eyes. He knew that Wilson wanted him to stop taking the pills because he believed it was for his own good. Maybe that was Wilson's truth, but that was only a small part of the story that is House's misery. As much as Foreman believed that House was **abusing **the pain medication, no one ever thought that House was **dependent** on them.

Or at least they did not act like it. His colleagues saw that House refused to go into rehab to correct the "problem" and they could not understand why House refused to correct the problem. They, especially Wilson did not realize that House saw no way out of the problem. Not that House cared what anyone but Wilson thought of him, but he had to have medication to help ease the pain. No matter what alternative therapies Wilson could through at him, they were all crutches; just like that one commercial stated that glasses and contacts were crutches. They were band-aids, temporary fixes for a larger problem. And House's pain problem was not going to go away with chakras, massages and psychobabble.

Wilson thought the drugs were what had changed House. It wasn't only the drugs the drugs as some studies suggested only honed House's existing character. The emotional and physical trauma the injury surrounding the amputation of most of his thigh muscle were what made him the man he is today. The delay in treatment, and the failure of his colleagues to discover what was wrong with him, the depression (which he refused and still refuses to acknowledge) and Stacy's betrayal of trust, Cuddy's suggestion of the middle ground and her inability to at least inform him of what Stacy was going to do caused him to mistrust humanity, and his colleagues. But the events that occurred during this period fostered the bitterness that Wilson hated so much. House knew that Wilson, in all his optimism, had believed that once House was off the drugs that everything would go back to the way it was before. It was naive of Wilson to think so. Then again, Wilson could not seem to understand that House's lack of a girlfriend in his life was not a large part of his problem. No matter what Wilson thought, girlfriend would not help House's personality. The damage had been done. He couldn't trust people. He had seen them at their worst and had not liked what he had seen.

Wilson knew that House did not trust people; this fact was the only thing that seemed to get through the thick skull of optimistic friend. The fact that House acknowledge and lived willingly with his misery did not escape Wilson's attention either. This was the reason why there had been such a big blow out when House had turned Stacy away. Wilson saw it as House wanting to maintain the thing that made him special, his misery. House had seen it as being human and caring what happened to another human being. (It was not something that House was proud of either.) Wilson honestly believed that everything would be fine once Stacy and him were back together. Or at least that is what he talked himself into believing. House knew that it was only a matter of weeks until things got as bad as they had been right after the infarction. Things might have been good at the beginning, but he had so many issues with Stacy and what she had done that House knew that being together would only make them both miserable.

As Cuddy had pointed out, House had always been an ass. Wilson was blinded by his friendship and loyalty, but House had always been an ass. The infarction and the drugs only had honed House's bad characteristic. He sure wasn't fucking Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms before the infarction. House still could not understand how Wilson managed to do a 180 from hating the idea of Stacy and House being together because it was an **affair** (like Wilson should be the one to talk), to him being all for it and yelling at House for not taking the opportunity. House was sure that Wilson had not understood his turn from wanting a relationship with Stacy to not wanting one. (It kind of helps when you realize that the guy your ex- girlfriend, hopefully to be present-girlfriend, has married proves that he is willing to give up more to make their relationship work.) Still, House had not defended himself when his friend had yelled at him on the roof about it. House knew that Wilson could not understand.

Wilson's solution to everything was a woman. Relationship not going well, have an affair or not to go home. This is what had led to the Grace mess. No matter what Wilson believes House actually does care about Wilson's well being and job. Taking up with a patient is a big matter, there were lies even House would not cross, but apparently Saint Wilson had no such qualms. Either Wilson was too blind to see the damage he could have caused to his own career or he just did not care. House had to wonder if maybe Wilson was really the one who was screwed up.

Wilson always said that House could change, become more like the person that he had once been; but House knew he could not go back to being that person. "It is always harder to go back," that was a phrase that House actually did believe in. And it was true for him. There was no way he could take back the years of pain; of growing drug dependency; of sarcasm and frustration (did he need to mention pain again?) He had had to relearn how to walk and alter his world completely. Even those people that Wilson so carefully and tactfully mentioned that were living lives close to their old ones, were changed as well.

As for the one chance at a pain-free life or at least the life without painkillers that Wilson wanted for him, House knew that dream was swiftly coming to a close, as the pain once more ebbed back into his conscious mind. He had taken a chance. He had told Cuddy to give him the ketamine that Wilson and Cuddy had been going on and on about for months. In fact he had read about it in the original German four weeks before Wilson or Cuddy had even mentioned it. (Because he had known about the treatment before they ever had. He did not want to hope that there was a possibility of a pain-free life if there was a chance that it was all an illusion. The ketamine treatment had worked, but the relief, apparently from pain, was brief; just as House had feared. House, contrary to Wilson's belief did not like to be in pain, nor did House like to be miserable. In fact, he liked very much not being in pain and not having the misery of the doctor's mistake six years ago being thrown in his face. The treatment that had allowed the hope to rush back into his friend's eyes was beginning to fail.

House could only imagine Wilson's reaction to House's news. Wilson and Cuddy would claim that it was all in his mind. That it was the dependency talking. But House knew with each passing day that his days without painkillers were once again coming to an end. He had tried to live without the painkillers before, although he had never told James. And he had tried alternative treatments. (Again, Greg had not told James. Who would believe anyways that the great Gregory House had actually tried to get his chakras aligned?) What was the point? They never worked, no matter how much Greg wanted them to.

House sighed as he stared down at his friend on the couch. What Wilson never realized was that House did care about what he thought and about what stupid things James did that caused even Greg to cringe. James Wilson did not even realize the things Greg House did to spare him the fallout of his stupid mistakes. (Not that James ever admitted to the mistakes.) Nor did he truly realize the efforts Greg put into little things to make Wilson happy. Although House had wanted the ketamine, he had also asked for it take erase the sorrow from his friend's eyes.

Now everything was going to be in shambles again. Once again there was no way out; House would have to endure the pained, annoyed and sad looks radiating from his friend's eyes.

House shook his head. To the sleeping form, House whispered in his more mellowed baritone, "Jimmy, the things I do for you."

Taking one final look at his friend, House stopped thinking of ways of telling Wilson the experimental treatment had failed, because only a moment before he had heard his friend's shallow gasping breath.

el fin


End file.
